If there was one thing I didn't think Nolan would let us down on in TDKR; it was the pacing/focus of the film. Especially when you look at his two films prior to TDKR - TDK and Inception.

Yup. TDKR was ambitious. I'll give it that. The problem was it tried to be too many things for just an almost 3 hour movie. They either should've taken away some of the bajillion things they wanted to do or made it longer/made it to two movies. It had the potential to be the undisputed best of the three IMO.

Oh man, that was incredible. The Batman comic fanatic in me spotted several Joker comic panels in his diary:

- Two from the classic 70's Joker story, The Laughing Fish, by Steve Englehart.
- Several from Grant Morrison's Joker story in Batman #663, The Clown at Midnight.

Did you see he also had pics of Alex DeLarge, Joker cards, clown faces, and a photo of a hyena.

False. You should know that the Nolan films are nothing like the comics.

As opposed to....

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The MCU Films:
-Obadiah Stane of Stane International who was a rival of Tony Stark in the comics is turned into his mentor whose been working under Tony's father for a long time. Quite the deviation in comparison to Ra's, who at least took the alias of Henri Ducard - one of Bruce's actual mentors from the comics.
-KGB agent Emil Blonsky was turned into an American army soldier injected with the Super Soldier serum. The Abomination was also a far bigger visual deviation from his look in the comics than any villain in TDKT was. Literally the only thing they have in common visually is the size and the skin color.
-Giving Tony a romantic relationship with Pepper which has never been done before. Pepper's always been Happy Hogan's love interest. Compare this to Rachel Dawes, who at least had Julie Madison aspects incorporated into her and wasn't a problem because Bruce Wayne can literally have any love interest.
-Jarvis (Tony's Alfred in the comics) being turned into a supercomputer.
-Whiplash being nothing like the comics. The defense used is that he was an amalgamation of Whiplash and Crimson Dynamo. I'd like to point out that BB's Ra's al Ghul was an amalgamation of Henri Ducard and Ra's al Ghul but was still closer to the Ra's of the comics than movie Whiplash was.
-Justin Hammer being literally the exact opposite of the comics.
One is old/cold/serious/British while the other is young/energetic/funny/American. There wasn't a single character in the Nolan films (including TDKR) that was literally the exact opposite of who that character is in the comics, except maybe Loeb (who is a minor character, especially in comparison to Hammer).
-The Thor mythos being watered down to pseudo-science (Avengers kinda fixed this though).
-Thor's origin being completely changed from start to finish. Instead of the noble warrior with honor who was banished from and intentionally left Asgard because he was sick of thousands of years of pointless fighting and chose to protect the people of Earth, we got a spoiled douchebag kid that was banished to Earth for restarting a long-ended war.
-While on Earth, he treats everyone like a d!ck and has a superiority complex. Quite far from the warrior that chose to leave his home and put his life on the line for the mortals.
-Donald Blake is nowhere to be seen.
-Jane Foster being a scientist/explorer as opposed to a nurse.
-Loki being watered down and not as mischievous as he was supposed to be (though Avengers did fix this).
-Captain America's sidekick Bucky being turned into Steve's best friend who is also the same age as him. At least in TDKR (which like I said before, I don't count), "Robin" was much younger than Batman and Batman still had somewhat of a mentor impact on him. In fact, the age gap between John Blake and Bruce in TDKR is not that strange since Bruce is 40 in TDKR. In the comics, Dick Grayson/Nightwing is about the same age as Blake when Bruce is around the age of 40 (this is pre-New 52 I'm talking about).
-Red Skull being ridiculously watered down. In the comics, Red Skull was a menacing fascist bigot on the same level as Hitler and would have even surpassed him in those categories and overthrow him had it not been for Cap. Instead, all of those elements are removed from his character and is turned into a joke in order to have a family friendly film. A lot of you think Scarecrow was watered down but he was nothing compared to how watered down Red Skull was.
-Overall, the whole first Captain America film having very watered down and/or ignored dark elements of the comics and of the era.
-Black Widow not having the Russian version of the Super Soldier serum in her body (at least there is zero evidence of it so far).
-The BS they pulled with the Mandarin in Iron Man 3. This one is obvious. It is also a lot worse when you consider that not only the Mandarin is Iron Man's archenemy but also that they literally did it to send a political message and for shock value, even if they had to sacrifice storytelling in order to do so.

Wow, that video with Kim Ledger and the diary was simply incredible. So cool that Heath made the diary kind of like a scrapbook with all those clippings. It truly looks like something that could have been a piece of the TDK viral marketing. What an artifact.

Also, TDKR made me appreciate BB and TDK more but for different reasons. In my case I enjoy them more because they're fully contextualized as part of a larger story. There are so many little moments and lines in both BB and TDK that I view a bit differently or have more resonance for me post-TDKR.

I also don't feel like it lacked focus at all. Its focus was clearly on Bruce and the end of his journey.

I was pretty surprised as well. Makes you wonder if he did the same thing on the set of Superman Returns.

I thought Origins was still leagues ahead of X3 though that doesn't exactly make it good.

Wouldn't be surprised considering......everything in that film.

Fair enough, I get through X3 a little easier because of Stewart and McKellen. Though it does hurt a little more since I love Rogue and feel that the choices they had her make completely destroyed her character arc. And there were so many great ideas but were jumbled and screwed up.

And I get a kick watching it since Jean Gray's house is just down the street.

Huh, I just noticed that Bruce can't break Bane's mask (which keeps Bane's pain at bay) in the first fight, but once he's learned to move on from his pain in the Pit and is fighting Bane again, he's able to.

I love how everyone else around him is practically losing it throughout the events of the film, yet Bruce is the one trying his hardest to reign himself in.

What's cool about how Bale plays Bats/Bruce in TDK, is he emotes far more when in costume, yet while he is just Bruce he's a lot more reserved; yet you feel the burden of his decisions weighing him down.

Take the press conference for instance, there is a moment where one of the people of Gotham says "he should turn himself in" and they pan back to Bruce and he's got this intense, pensive, glare on his face.

I feel like watching TDK right now, but I've got work tomorrow morning, lol.

This.

Bale's performance in TDK is great, although in a totally different way to the supporting cast around him.

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Originally Posted by BatLobsterRises

Wow, that video with Kim Ledger and the diary was simply incredible. So cool that Heath made the diary kind of like a scrapbook with all those clippings. It truly looks like something that could have been a piece of the TDK viral marketing. What an artifact.

Also, TDKR made me appreciate BB and TDK more but for different reasons. In my case I enjoy them more because they're fully contextualized as part of a larger story. There are so many little moments and lines in both BB and TDK that I view a bit differently or have more resonance for me post-TDKR.

I also don't feel like it lacked focus at all. Its focus was clearly on Bruce and the end of his journey.

Yep.

__________________

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Originally Posted by Reek

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The Winds of Winter will be released on July 5th. Preorders get the special collectors sleeve of Lady Stoneheart hanging D&D.

Anyone see that article that states TDKR to be the worst film ever made?

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Originally Posted by BatLobsterRises

I also don't feel like it lacked focus at all. Its focus was clearly on Bruce and the end of his journey.

Agree

The focus was clear and the focus didn't need to show a whole lot of extras such as the last two Batfilms in Nolan's trilogy. If anything for such a character-driven film as TDKR is, we needed to see more of a voice between the main characters(Gordon trying to deal with the fact that The Batman is gone yet again, for example. We never see this)

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Originally Posted by Tequilla

There is something extremely morbid in looking at a deceased man's diary and showing it in video. Excessively voyeuristic , although their intentions are probably the best.

I wouldn't call it morbid, unless you think it's still too early to show it, but it's memorabilia at its finest.

Yup. TDKR was ambitious. I'll give it that. The problem was it tried to be too many things for just an almost 3 hour movie. They either should've taken away some of the bajillion things they wanted to do or made it longer/made it to two movies. It had the potential to be the undisputed best of the three IMO.

Sums it up perfectly. Perfectly.

In TDKR's case, their rule of "Cram in all your ideas into one film" backfired.

__________________"There is a difference between you and me. We both looked into the abyss, but when it looked back at us... you blinked."

There is something extremely morbid in looking at a deceased man's diary and showing it in video. Excessively voyeuristic , although their intentions are probably the best.

Maybe if it was someone random, but it was his dad who was showing it off. I hope they include some pages with the The Dark Knight Trilogy: Ultimate Collector’s Edition Blu-ray boxset that's due out later this year. Or at least another detailed video walkthrough.

TDKR is a bit overstuffed, but not to the extent that some would have you think. An extra 5-10 minutes could have gone a long way in ironing in letting a few things breath more. But unfortunately that was literally impossible given the IMAX spool.

That said, it's still beast mode filmmaking. It's awe-inspring ambition is what allows it to transcend. I'd rather TDKR be as ambitious as it is with a few hiccups than something "flawlessly" executed that was safer and less ambitious. After TDK the bar was set too high to settle for anything that didn't dwarf TDK's scale and ambition.

That would be convincing if TDKR was a graveyard of half formed masterpieces. If isn't. It has some strong ideas, padded with flab and crap. Many of those are shared with a dozen other generic summer tentpole blockbusters.

Yup. TDKR was ambitious. I'll give it that. The problem was it tried to be too many things for just an almost 3 hour movie. They either should've taken away some of the bajillion things they wanted to do or made it longer/made it to two movies. It had the potential to be the undisputed best of the three IMO.

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Originally Posted by The Batman

Sums it up perfectly. Perfectly.

In TDKR's case, their rule of "Cram in all your ideas into one film" backfired.

I also agree with that as well, although I do forgive them for what they were aiming...which is why I don't look down on that movie too harshly.

TDKR is a bit overstuffed, but not to the extent that some would have you think. An extra 5-10 minutes could have gone a long way in ironing in letting a few things breath more. But unfortunately that was literally impossible given the IMAX spool.

That said, it's still beast mode filmmaking. It's awe-inspring ambition is what allows it to transcend. I'd rather TDKR be as ambitious as it is with a few hiccups than something "flawlessly" executed that was safer and less ambitious. After TDK the bar was set too high to settle for anything that didn't dwarf TDK's scale and ambition.

Agree.

For what it had to get into within that IMAX time restraint, it was a masterpiece if you ask me. And this will probably be quoted, lol.